Let me tell you from first hand experience: you do not appreciate hills until you've biked up them. I know, this is a very random and out of the blue comment but it's true. This summer, I have decided to forgo the half mile walk from my house to campus and have decided to bike to and from. Despite it being only a 3 minute ride, both my quads and heart are getting one of the best workouts they've ever received day in and day out.

Maybe it's my lack of cardio these days, or maybe I'm just no Lance Armstrong when it comes to biking. But man, hills are tough. It really makes you sit down and appreciate flat surfaces. Never in my life have I wished I could ride downhill both ways on my journey to and from the classroom. Instead, I somehow manage to hit one of the biggest in most vicious hills on Emory's campus.

This bad boy is not subtle, rather it is colossal in size and mountainous in elevation. As soon as you turn the corner onto Eagle Row and make a sharp right onto Dickey Drive, your calves begin to burn. I normally like to get up on my back legs and propel myself up the hill, but that effort is short-lived as the lactic acid immediately begins to build up. Cries of pain and agony pierce my legs and run up my body to my arms, which are in anguish with the tight grip I have grasping the handle bars.

As you start to make the treacherous climb up to the summit, the road begins to narrow. It is here where the difficulty really starts to kick in. Not only are you driving your legs through the pedals at full force to launch you upwards, but your mind is also in a whirlwind as you are cautiously paying attention to the terrain that lies ahead. There is a crosswalk that resides about halfway up the mountain, and just beyond that sits a mammoth of a speed bump. It's almost too much to process all at once, which is why you must take this route at a slow and methodical pace.

Even worse is the common occurrence of a car that may be coming down as you are going up. Not only is it another curveball that is being thrown directly at you, but seeing how effortlessly it glides down the hill makes the upwards ascend that much more difficult. However, you grit it out and dig deep. Before you know it you've reached the peak both tired and satisfied at the work you have accomplished. Not only is it rewarding to make it all the way to the top, but knowing that you get to ride down it on the way back makes the voyage all that much more worthwhile in the end.

It's moments like these when you really notice the bumpy terrain that surrounds you. Man, are those hills tough.